1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. I’m sure you hear this in AI conversations in particular. This conversation today hasn’t been as AI-heavy as usual, but in those discussions, domain knowledge comes up a lot.

People who can extract real value from enterprise AI and workflow are those with deep domain knowledge. They understand what’s happening and where they can add value by working through those processes.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The venture equation, which a lot of entrepreneurs struggle to grasp, is you have to go from zero to a hundred million dollars in five to seven years once you’ve entered the venture timeline. If you’re not doing that, then it’s hard to make the fund equations work.

There are some small funds that are doing Bootstrapping to Exit or Seedstrapping to Exit kind of deals. That’s a slightly different investment thesis, but they still need to find high-velocity companies to be able to exit them. Velocity is critical—without it, exits don’t really happen.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: This is interesting. I’ve tracked a company that pioneered selling diamonds online—Blue Nile. You must be familiar with them. The entrepreneur came from the diamond industry; his family had roots there. He had a key insight: in the U.S., diamonds are primarily purchased by men for engagement rings.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Vinit Bhansali, Takshil Venture Partners (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a few case studies of what you have invested in. As you’re describing those stories, tell us a bit about how you found these companies or how they found you, and what did you see in those companies that made you want to write those checks?

Building Long-Term Viable Companies

9. Does 1Mby1M support founders trying to build long-term, viable companies even if they become non-VC attractive?

Investor Renegotiations

8. Will I receive support navigating investor renegotiations — down rounds, partial exits, or changing the business model narrative?